


Goodneighbor, a Home to All

by oloros



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Hancock doing foolish things that end up surprisingly well, Post-Minutemen ending, Recovery, X6-88 learning not to be a bigot, unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oloros/pseuds/oloros
Summary: Weeks after the Institute's destruction, the Institute's high ranked synths became the omen of the wasteland. Ridiculed by the whelps he looked down on and rejected by civilisation, wishing for nothing but an end to his dark path, X6-88 waits for his death in what is left of Boston.An unlikely creature approaches him, and as he readies for his wish to come true, it speaks:“Ididthink ‘bout bringing my shotgun with me, put a couple shots in your skull for finality’s sake, but… Iactuallycame here to offer you a home.”
Relationships: X6-88 & John Hancock
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Goodneighbor, a Home to All

Through the damp streets ridden with black filth and dried blood, he fell to his elbows and yielded to a dying world. His home, the Institute, the _only_ home he had ever known… destroyed, blown to pieces as the original world had once been. It was no better off than the Commonwealth, nothing but a pile of rubble and intelligence taken too soon.

Even so, it surprised him that so many communities had stood all this time. He had passed Diamond City briefly, only to be threatened at gunpoint, ushering him away quicker than he had arrived. Super mutants plagued surrounding buildings, but in an… _organised_ kind of way. It was almost admirable how creatures with such little capacity for intelligent thought could develop ranks and hierarchies. He had even overheard one displaying _ambition_.

The creatures of the Commonwealth were disgusting, the mark of humanity’s failure, but they were _living._

Living was something X6-88 wished to _not_ be doing at that moment. He was surrounded by an unfamiliar environment full of those who despised him, knowing there was no chance of going back. No amount of technology could rewind time- that’s why society had crumbled, Father used to say.

He pressed his cheek against the ground, welcoming the rain that trickled down from the skies. Maybe one of those feral ghouls would come and put him out of his misery. Not that he would like to be ended by such a disappointing creature, but all the same… it was a release.

Footsteps approached, gradually, and as he rose his head, withered hands came into sight. Had he wished it into existence? Was that possible? Following the hands upwards, it became apparent this was a different type of ghoul. It looked silly, reproachable, dressed in a bright red coat with a tricorn hat.

“Taking a nap, are we?” Its voice was grating on his ears.

“Leave me be, ghoul.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, the only sign his words rattled it. “You’re one of ‘em coursers, arentcha? I recognise that uniform, fancy glasses and all. Way too clean.” He heard a crack as it took a knee. It looked down on him. He pulled himself up to meet its eye level.

"Have you come to revel in your victory? Or are you looking to eat me?”

“I came to ask why you’re lying on the floor outside of my town.”

X6 looked past its shoulder to a bright, glowing sign. Goodneighbor. “I’m waiting to die,” he answered.

“Sheesh, I didn’t expect you to be so blunt ‘bout it.” It rose back to full height. X6 followed suit, watching it closely. “I _did_ think ‘bout bringing my shotgun with me, put a couple shots in your skull for finality’s sake, but… I _actually_ came here to offer you a home.”

“A home?”

“A temporary home,” it said, “But a home nonetheless.”

It was being hospitable to him. “Why?”

Dark eyes drifted beyond him. “I’d love to tell you the reasoning behind my every action, but can we do it in a safer place?” X6 trailed its stare to a gathering pack of feral dogs.

“Oh,” he said. The ghoul didn’t wait for him to give a proper affirmation, twirling on its boots and sauntering past the glowing sign. He followed, though he wasn’t sure why.

**\--*--**

“An Institute synth?! Have you lost your mind?”

The ghoul had taken him into the Old State House, a building he had briefly covered the history of back in the Institute. Despite the nuclear fallout, it had retained an impressive amount of structure. They scaled the stairs and entered a room to the left, where a tall woman with a half-shaved head awaited them. Her eyes spat flames.

The ghoul raised a flat palm, “I don’t wanna hear it, alright?”

“It could _kill_ us.”

“So could Nicky, but he’d never hurt a blowfly… well, he would, but you get what I mean.”

“You know damn well that’s not the same, Hancock.”

X6 cleared his throat, drawing both pairs of eyes to him. “If I’m inconveniencing you, I’m happy to leave.”

“Ye-”

The ghoul cut her off by pressing a wrinkled hand to her lips. “No,” it said, “You can stay. There’s a room with a bed for you to sleep, step out and look just to your left. Small, like a closet, but it’s probably not much different from what the Institute gave you, eh?”

He wasn’t sure what the creature was talking about- X6 had been designated his own sleeping quarters in the Insitute. He didn’t say a word, only nodded his head and stepped out and into the mentioned room. It was as quaint an area as the Commonwealth could provide, he supposed, with a single sleeping bag and a shelf full of supplies. Ammo, food, water… drugs. He wrinkled his nose at the Jet and tucked it into a blue box.

Thunder rumbled outside- it seemed that they had just beaten an incoming radiation storm. He clipped his glasses to the neck of his uniform and slipped into the sleeping bag. As he closed his eyes, he could hear the ghoul’s voice… raspy, worn, followed by the woman’s.

“It’s fine, Fahren.”

“What if it wakes up tomorrow and decides to shoot up the whole town?”

“We can take it.”

“You’re willing to risk the lives of your people for a _courser?_ ”

There was a sigh, unlike the one he had heard before. It was heavy, full of something he couldn’t understand.

“Listen to yourself,” the ghoul said. “You know what it reminds me of? The way the folks in Diamond City spoke about the ghouls; saying that they would turn feral anytime, that they were nothing but time bombs. Nothing but _monsters_.” It growled the last word, deep and primal. He listened closer.

“Goodneighbor is a place that people can live free. The Institute never let their synths live free.”

There was a pause.

The ghoul’s voice was quieter, then, more pained. “It would go against everything I’ve worked for to deny them the chance.”

It knew the risk it was taking, yet its morals drove it onwards. It pained it to think of what X6 could do, yet it persisted in keeping him out of the rain. He closed his eyes and slept for the first time in weeks.

**\--*--**

Goodneighbor was everything X6-88 despised about the Commonwealth. Groups of drug-addicted goons sharing needles and inhalers, ghouls at every turn, and even an _Assaultron_ running a small business like it were human. Every corner was grimy and littered with garbage, the smell was unbearable and with each step he took he could feel a new set of wandering eyes on him.

But Goodneighbor was also the only place in the Commonwealth that had greeted him with acceptance rather than hostility. Those wandering eyes were wary, but they were not threatening. The residents minded their own business, and the mayor himself had given him a job; he had hired him as one of his guns. He was working again.

If he were working for the Institute, he would have laughed. He would have called him foolish for deliberately allowing one of the strongest models of synth into the midst of his town, let alone entrusting it to protect them. Yet, that moment in the rain, crouched down to look him in the eye, there was someone who had seen him as more than a cog in a machine. Someone who had seen him for what he was: a soldier abandoned by his army, not knowing how to begin a new life.

X6-88 did not like him all the much. He was addicted to drug the same as all the others, his skin was rotted and burnt away to fit the frame of a monster and he had not once washed his ridiculous clothes. But one man had seen a synth on the street and thought not to execute him, but to offer him a place in the new, frightening world he had been thrust into. One man had given him a _new_ home, a _new_ purpose.

His name was Hancock.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, there is not ONE fic for these two as oddly paired friends... I aim to change that.  
> I've started a universe I don't think I can _stop_ writing about.


End file.
